The proof that front-footing bad news works

Written by Shanna Crispin

Communicators working through crises often find themselves trying to convince leaders that front-footing an issue is the best approach. 

We argue that owning the narrative by proactively revealing negative news - or a weakness - before someone else does is better for a brand’s reputation. 

Essentially, you’re stealing someone else’s thunder by sharing the information yourself. 

What’s often lacking in these conversations is the evidence that it works - but there are, in fact, numerous studies that have shown it to be effective. So much so that it’s even termed the “stolen thunder effect”. 

The practice has found its way into strategic communications from the legal field, where the impact on jury perceptions of proactively sharing weaknesses in a defence argument has been studied - and shown to be largely effective - for more than 30 years. 

In the 2000s, it emerged as a communications principle during crises and has since been studied in a range of different contexts. 

One of the most notable examples is a 2014 study involving a fictional pharmaceutical company. In the study, all participants learned that one of its drugs caused severe headaches. 

However, some learned the news from the company itself, while others learned it from a third party. The result? People who heard the news from the company were 4.5 times more likely to accept a company-funded health test than those who heard it from a third party. 

In 2017, the stolen thunder effect was explored in more detail in research led by the University of Twente. The study sought to understand the relationship between a brand’s “reputational capital” - whether it had a good or bad reputation before a crisis - and the type of crisis: whether a product presented a risk to customers or the company had committed a moral transgression, in this case using child labour to manufacture clothing. 

The study confirmed that trust scores increased by around 18%, averaged across three different dimensions of trust, when a company proactively shared the news rather than people finding out from a third party. 

The effect was more noticeable when disclosures related to product harm rather than a moral transgression, and when the company had a strong reputation before the crisis. 

However, the researchers also suggested that if a brand had a negative reputation before the crisis, there was a risk that the proactive disclosure of negative news could be seen as a public relations tactic. 

The evidence shows that proactively sharing information when issues arise can have significant positive effects, especially for brands with healthy reputational capital - goodwill in the bank, so to speak. 

For brands or organisations struggling with a negative reputation, it can still be beneficial, but it needs to be carefully handled, so it’s not seen as an exercise in spin. 

At the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that being transparent with your customers - or communities - is the right thing to do. Trust is built on the ability to deliver, benevolence and integrity. And when negative information is likely to emerge, allowing someone else to expose it is rarely a good strategy for building trust.